


Epiphany under the copper Beeches

by ThymeSprite



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Picknick in a graveyard, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 10:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3352592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThymeSprite/pseuds/ThymeSprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has trouble accepting that Sherlock is gone. And then, when he visits the detective's grave, a childhood friend of Sherlock's gives him unexpected hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphany under the copper Beeches

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot is set between seasons 2 and 3, after Sherlock's supposed death.

The door of the cab closed with an audible thud, its smack so ultimate and cruel to John’s heart that he felt his knees go wobbly. Yet he signalised the driver to leave, thereby condemning himself to the task at hand, a task he dreaded more than anything else in the moment. Acceptance.

How should he? Shivering in the chilly breeze, he hid his hands in his pockets, fists clenched and his paces stiff and short as he forced himself to go on, to actually reach the gate of the graveyard.

The graveyard. He could not think of it as anything else, dared not to think further just as he had not dared to go further in the recent weeks. Once, only once had he been here and had only found the strength to do it because of Mrs. Hudson, but since then… The only person he had mentioned Sherlock to was his shrink and all she said was that he had to accept it.

Taking a shaky breath, John asked himself how on earth he should accomplish the impossible and he had no answer because he was not Sherlock…and Sherlock was gone.

“There, accepted.”, he groaned into the cold air and turned around to leave, but he could almost hear Sherlock sneer at his compassion, his feelings. He had to get over this and on with his life.

Although he really did not know how to manage this, he gave a violent start and tore the gate open, furiously marching through and along the corridors. He did not have to look around to find the way nor did he wish to.

The wind brought the clattering of gardening tools to his ears and upon turning his head he saw an old woman tending to a grave to which she spoke dearly. The sight almost choked him and what was the worst of it, he himself thought it ridiculous…yet inevitable.

“Pull yourself together…”, John scolded himself and kept walking, eyes fixed onto the copper beeches next to the…grave…so that he could avoid looking at it for as long as humanly possible. When he was too close to ignore it any longer, John took a deep breath before laying eyes upon that stone…and froze.

“What are you doing here?!”, he furiously asked the girl sitting in front of the gravestone, seriously sitting there on a Union Jack-coloured picnic blanket, sandwich in hand.

“Relax, I’m not a crazy fangirl, John.”, she answered, turning around to him after she had spoken and moved over to give him room on the blanket as she then patted the spot next to her.

“How…?”, he stammered, flustered to the point where he forgot his anger by how she had known his name even before she had seen him. A mischievous sparkle danced in her dark brown eyes and she smiled as she explained: “Fangirls never give up on their hero, even if everyone else hates him for being a fraud. And, seeing that everyone else hates him but you immediately tried to scare me off, you just have to be John Watson.”

For a moment John honestly thought that he was hallucinating, that he now actually imagined seeing Sherlock in a woman. But no, her hair was light brown and tidily kempt, although the wind forced her to tuck it behind her ears then and again. Yeah, as if that was the only reason…

“I’m right, am I not?”, she asked, a sweet smile on her features and this broke John out of his dumbfounded stare, “Yeah, yes you are. It’s just…who are you?”

That was not the question he had actually wanted to ask and her smile told him that she knew anyway, but he simply followed her invitation and sat down beside her.

“Violet Hunter.”, she introduced herself holding out her small hand which he shook and then he was asked, “Sandwich? Tuna and sweet corn.”

“Yeah…”, John mumbled, still not knowing what the hell was going on. But he was famished and the sandwich tasty, so he ate it anyway, casting a sheepish glance at the stone engraved with his best friend’s name.

“Oh, he wouldn’t mind.”, Violet assured him and John frowned at her, but before he could ask, she already answered his imminent question again with a smile on her lips, “I’ve known him for quite a while and believe me, he wouldn’t mind.”

“True.”, he then admitted and ate silently next to her, although all sorts of questions were bubbling up in his head, but each overthrew the one before and so he asked none. He was spared the effort, however, when Violet began to talk of her own accord, bitterly, yet smiling: “I do have to admit that I pictured our happy reunion a bit differently. You know, less angry newspaper articles, less gravestones.”

John almost choked on the bite of sandwich, but cleared his throat and whispered: “No one imagined this.”

“I guess not.”, she nodded sadly and then explained, her voice throaty, “I was in Scotland, teaching at an all-girls boarding school. So, not much time, but I did read your blog, it was nice to hear from Sherlock again. But then…I read everything about…this. And I just had to see for myself.”

“I know what you mean…”, John mumbled, but Violet chuckled and said, “No you don’t.”

Staring at her in confusion, she shrugged and replied: “Everything, your entire being screams “Get me outta here!”. Yet you’re here. Why?”

Now he was shaking his head and did not mean to answer, so instead, he enquired, as he was curious anyway: “How did you come to know Sherlock?”

“Same question right back at you.”, Violet retorted, smiling and waiting, so John sighed and gave up. This girl would get the better of him no matter what he tried and he felt powerless anyway, so he sighed and told her: “I met an old friend after my service in Afghanistan and mentioned that I needed an affordable flat, but was a horrible roommate. He suggested I talk to Sherlock.”

“Because he is the most terrible roommate you can find on this planet.”, Violet giggled and as John nodded with a shy smile, she shook her head and murmured bitterly, “Yeah, you always were.”

“You have been his roommate?”, John asked completely in shock and again she smiled, “Well, sort of. My mother was their governess and so we lived with them. Sherlock isn’t that much older than me, so we played a lot as kids. Did you know he wanted to be a pirate?”

As she smiled brightly, John could no longer fight back his own chuckle and nodded: “Mycroft mentioned it once, though it is hard to imagine.”

“Really?”, Violet asked and hummed to herself in thought before she mumbled, “To be honest, I thought it was kind of hard to imagine he’d stop wanting to be a pirate.”

John curiously raised an eyebrow and she laughed sheepishly, but then looked at him and told him with a smile of remembrance: “We used to play together, Sherlock as the vicious pirate who snatched the innocent maiden, me, from her hometown and then sailed the Seven Seas with her. It was…hard when he didn’t want to play anymore.”

“What happened?”, John blurted out, without wanting to, but he could barley believe Sherlock had actually played as a child. He felt sorry as he saw the pain in Violet’s eyes that were still fixed onto the gravestone as she shrugged: “Hell if I know. All I knew back then was that my pirate was gone and left a grumpy yob that never looked at me twice. He only did so despite this change if there was something he could embarrass me with. “You should have paid more attention when sneaking out last night, the stains on your knees give you away” he’d say or other stupid things. Gosh, I was 8!”

Helplessly lost in confusion, John arched his eyebrows at her and she giggled awkwardly. For once in all these bleak and gloomy months since he had lost his friend, John felt the will to smile again, to joke: “You lost a pirate, I was stripped of my pride entirely. Whenever I had a date, Sherlock hinted at a few things I never really understood. And after the date that went terribly for the most part, he’d point out to me in detail where I’d gone wrong. Wrong tie, wrong shoes, wrong location…wrong woman. I’m sure that he also meant to say “wrong man”, but bless him, he didn’t insult me that deeply.”

Together they laughed and as he stopped, John gave a hearty sigh after which he added: “And he was a pain in the arse at Cluedo.”

Violet snorted with laughter and then shot back: “Well, then you’ve never played Monopoly against Mycroft. That’s torture, believe me!”

They both fell into a fit of laughter until John, still grinning like an idiot, hushed her down: “Quiet, Violet, we can’t laugh in a graveyard.”

“Why?”, she shrugged and John had to chuckle again, something he had grown so unaccustomed to that his cheeks already hurt. As soon as she had calmed down, Violet tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear and this brought John’s gaze to her earring which he found rather peculiar, so he enquired: “That’s a beautiful earring.”

“Thank you.”, she said with a smile, “But you can direct that compliment right at Sherlock and Mycroft.”

This answer baffled him and Violet turned to him, showing him the other earring as well, both little columns of silver, adorned with crystals glistening in the afternoon sun, violet on the left earring, green on the right.

“When I graduated, they gave me these as a gift.”, Violet quietly explained, “And, picture this, they both even hugged me that day, I was flabbergasted! I had mentioned that I would go to Scotland to teach there and so they gave me these, one each, so I wouldn’t forget them, or at least so they said. The earrings even have their initials.”

A small, somewhat bitter smiled tugged at the corners of her lips as she returned her gaze to the gravestone. What she was thinking, John really did not dare to guess and he did not want to see this first ray of sunshine in months fade away so quickly, so he asked the very first question his average mind, as his friend would have put it, managed to come up with: “Which one is from Sherlock?”

Violet grinned happily and then dared him: “Make an educated guess, apply his methods.”

This was exactly what he had tried to avoid these recent weeks, but he had to admit that Sherlock’s trade had rubbed off, albeit he was nowhere as good as him. Yet he tried: “The violet one.”

“You really think so?”, she teased and although unsettled now, John gave a sharp nod. Chuckling, Violet held her earring towards him so he could see the bottom of it and he found the well known initials there, SH. So many text messages signed with it and yet he would never see this again. John winced as his heart grew heavy and Violet apologised: “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”, he warded off, “It’s just…”

“You miss him.”, she stated and their eyes met as she added, “Just like I do.”

She was the one to break their interlocked gazes as she looked at the gravestone again and mumbled angrily: “Come on now, how did you do it?”

These words evoked the most terrible memories from the abyss in which John had cast them and he saw Sherlock fall …die. His throat tightened and he drew long, calming breaths, as his shrink had advised him…but it did not help in the slightest.

“You know…”, Violet drawled, “When we were little and Sherlock still wanted to be a pirate, there was a neighbour with a dog.”

John blinked, unsure where she was going with that anecdote, but he listened because the tone of her voice told him it was important. She spoke quietly and more to herself than to him: “He mistreated the dog, beat it until she limped. And one day…that dog was dead. He was charged for cruelty to the animal, but that’s not what’s the interesting point here.”

John waited for her to continue, but Violet made him wait before she slowly turned to him and whispered with a small grin: “Misha wasn’t dead. She was in a shelter and soon adopted and then lived a happy life.”

Blinking in confusion, John shook his head, trying to wrap it around this mystery, but he could not. So he muttered: “How?”

Violet’s grin grew broader before she gushily revealed in a hushed whisper: “A pirate took her away.”

John’s heart jumped at that hint and galloped away, already knowing something his mind refused to accept. He could not…

Thoroughly confused, he stared at Violet and breathlessly mumbled: “Are you saying…?”

“What do you think?”, she countered shrugging and smilin, “What does this tell you, all of this?”

“He…”, John began, glanced at the gravestone, then back at her and did not trust his own voice as he asked more than he said, “Could he… is he alive?”

All she gave him was a shrug and John felt fury fill him up from head to toe.

“I don’t know.”, Violet sincerely stated and looked at him, tears glistening in her eyes, “But he once faked a death. Misha was an animal, but Sherlock wasn’t even ten years old back then. What do you think he’s capable of by now?”

“I…”, John stammered, hyperventilating, but Violet finished the sentence for him, “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Giving a long sigh of both despair and hope, John replied: “Neither would I.”

“See?”, she asked with a brightening smile, “And assuming that we’re right, that he just messed about with practically everyone, then I’m sure he did that for a good reason. Sherlock never did anything without reason, the two of us and Mycroft know that best of all. There is a reason, John.”

This was…against everything his shrink had told him, but at the same time, it was the only explanation John could accept. He knew very well that he could be grasping at straws, but it was all he had left.

“Moriarty.”, he mumbled as a sudden inspiration hit him and upon Violet’s curious glance, he added, “What if this business isn’t over, if there are still agents of his? If he was only an agent?”

“Yeah, what if.”, she retorted with a bitter smile, but John’s own was bright and thoroughly happy as he said, “Thank you.”

“Don’t.”, Violet mumbled to herself and a blush of shame dusted her cheeks, “What if I’m wrong and have messed us both up completely with this?”

“Then we’re in it together.”, John firmly said and knew from her looks that he had surprised her, “That’s at least better than being alone with doubt.”

“That’s true. Doubt makes a bad companion.”, she nodded and returned her attention to the gravestone, “You heard the man. Get in gear.”

As expected nothing happened, but John still felt a whole lot better than before, so without thought, he took Violet’s hand. She glanced at their intertwined fingers and mischievously mumbled: “Ca ‘canny there, Mister.”

“Excuse me?”, John stuttered and let go, but she laughed whole-heartedly and took his hand again, telling him, “That’s a Scottish word for “careful”, but don’t worry, I’m not mad. But, come to think of it…”

Biting her lip, Violet then sheepishly grinned at him from under her eyelashes and said: “I kind of need a place to crash tonight.”

At first, he was utterly surprised, but then again, a girl that had been friends with Sherlock would just have to be capable of practically anything, so joked: “If I bring a woman home, at least the gay-rumours could subside.”

“Nah.”, she retorted, “Wouldn’t count on it.”

“Hey!”, he complained, but the both laughed until John stopped short and muttered, “You know, there is a now free room in the flat, so…”

“You’re still living in Baker Street?”, Violet gasped, but he only shrugged and admitted, glancing at their still entwined hands, “I…couldn’t bring myself to…abandon it. Abandon him.”

Thoughtfully she nodded, but then clapped her hands and got up: “Well then, it’s getting chilly, so if you show me the way, I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.”

“Alright.”, he nodded and together they folded up the picnic blanket; all the while John wondering what on earth they were doing, deciding to live together without knowing each other. But had he not done the same thing with Sherlock? And it had turned out well right until…

He shook the thought off, smiled at Violet and, as he saw her backpack, offered: “Should I take that for you?”

“Oh, that would be nice!”, she rejoiced and so he shouldered the quite heavy bag and Violet linked arms with him as they left.

“Bye, Sherlock, hope to see you soon.”, she called to the gravestone and John could not help but think that she was definitely a strange girl, yet amiable all the same. This could end in disaster…or finally a bit of happiness again.

 

Unbeknownst to both John and Violet, a lean figure in a dark coat was watching them leave the grave. This person watched them closely as they walked arm in arm, chatting and his eyes narrowed as he saw her smile widely at the man beside her.

“What the hell are you doing here?”, he mumbled to himself as they hailed a cab and tucked the blue scarf tighter around his neck, “What brought you here, oh fair maiden?”

Her appearance made matters more complicated, but also more interesting, nevertheless it would soon be time, this much Sherlock knew.


End file.
